Squid with Chilli, Garlic and Crisp Lettuce

 Ohoho....This is a record for this blog, I have not updated for more than a month. I have been a very bad blogger. My hands are really full now and its very tricky to type with one hand. For friends that have known me from this blog, will probably guess right what has kept me away from posting or visiting. There are many waste going on in the garden and into the compost heap. We are blessed with many self-seeded edibles this year and with only 2 mouths to feed in the house now, we can't managed to finish the goodies by ourselves. Lettuce are nice to be pick now in the garden smack straight between sandwiches.  There are still a few left of red chillies dangling outside for us to make our favourite squid dish.

~Squid witg Chilli, Garlic and Crisp Lettuce~

(Recipe from Your Place Or Mine by Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris)

Ingredients:

2 squids (about 400 gram each)

500ml peanut oil, for deep frying plus a little extra

1 head garlic, finely chopped

35 gram cornflour

75 gram rice flour

2 teaspoons sea salt flakes

2 teaspoons freshly grounded white pepper

1 egg white

2 spring onions, thinly sliced

2 fresh red bird's-eye chillies, thinly sliced

2 fresh green bird's eye chillies, thinly sliced

1 fresh long red chilli, thinly sliced

2 teaspoons finely chopped ginger

2 tablespoons chopped coriander

1 small iceberg lettuce, washed leaves separated (optional)

2 small lebenese cucumbers, peeled, cut into strips (optional)

Coriander sprigs, to serve

(1) Rinse the squid, then separate the hood and tentacles. Rinse and remove the contents of each hood and rinse again. Remove the head and beak from the tentacles and rinse again. Remove the quill from inside the hoods and discard. Score each hood lightly on the softer side on the diagonal with the tip of a sharp knife then repeat in the other direction to form a neat criss-cross pattern.  Cut each hood into 4 cm pieces and set aside with the tentacles.

(2) Heat a splash of the oil in a wok over low heat and fry the garlic until just golden. Remove that garlic with a slotted spoon and transfer to a paper towel to drain, then set aside.

(3) Mix the cornflour, rice flour, salt and pepper in a bowl and set aside. Place the egg white in a stainless-steel bowl, then beat until light and foamy. Place the squid first into the egg white, then lift out, wipe off the excess and toss through the flour mixture. Set aside.

(4)Heat oil for deep-frying. Working in batches if neccessary, deep-fry the squid for 4 minutes or until crisp, then remove and drain on a paper towel.

(5)Heat a splash of extra oil in the wok and fry the spring onion, chilli and ginger for a few seconds over medium heat, then add the squid and coriander and toss together. Tip the lot onto a plate and serve with lettuce, cucumber and coriander sprigs.

Hope to catch up with every one soon.

Take Care!

Perch steamed with Lemon Basil and Ginger for Good Friday

We have many lemon basil volunteer plants sprouted from last spring. Sometime when I pruned them to make them bushier, I bring  those pruned stems in the bathroom as they have very strong lemony scent. The lemon basil are flowering and bees really like the flowers.

How was your Good Friday day?

We bought a perch on Thursday and I saw this nice recipe from CikManggis~jom masak, jom makan-makan blog and adapted her recipe with what I have in my garden and pantry. Terima kasih (Thank you) CikManggis, we really enjoyed it, especially Rayyan who was really greedy. It was only 3 of us for dinner on Good Friday, me,hubby and Rayyan. So I thought one medium perch will be enough but next time for greedy Rayyan will have to steam 2 fish. A good protein source and a very healthy dish.

Perch steamed with Lemon Basil & Ginger

(Recipe adapted from CikManggis~jom masak, jom makan-makan blog)

It was really quick dish to prepare if you already have a cleaned fish ready. Took me less than 45 minutes to prepare this dish.

While preparing ingredients you can warm up your steamer.

Ingredient (A):

1 cleaned medium size perch (or any other suitable fish)

3 garlic cloves thinly sliced

3 shallots thinly sliced (or a quarter of red onion)

5cm of ginger - julienne

1 pepper-sliced

2 lemon grass stalk- bruised

a handful of washed lemon basil leaves (or 3 kaffir lime leaves)

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 or 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce

about 3 spoon of water

(you can season it with white pepper, sugar & salt, but I did not put any seasoning for my toddler)

To make it more spicy add some chillies (did not because of our toddler).

Put the fish and all of the ingredient (A) into a suitable container and steam for 15 minutes.

While waiting prepare ingredients B.

Ingredient (B):

1 tomato-cut

lime or lemon juice from 2 fruits

1 carrot-julienne

can garnish it with coriander, chinese celery and spring onion leaves.

Add ingredients B after ingredients A steamed 15 minutes.

Steam for another 15 minutes and done.


Join in Wendy's Garden To Table Challenge.

We found this video today and was reminded of Rayyan's cardiac surgeries in the past. Rayyan was lucky to have a gifted cardiac surgeon for his first and second surgery with Prof. Igor whom is featured in this video. He has created many miracles for us and hope. We hope that Rayyan will be 3rd lucky to have the same surgeon again for his pending 3rd surgery this coming May.

Salmon and Green Bean Potato Patties

Many of our potato plants gone yellow and wilted. So had to dig and find spuds. Although I do wish that they grow much longer, rather than finding so many tiny little spuds. Because many of the plants are rather young. Yesterday, pull out some dragon carrots and purple top turnip as well.

Not many edibles to harvest from the garden at the moment. So we have to depend on our frozen goods. We are trying to use up our frozen beans from last summer which should be more than 9 months sitting in the freezer now. So we found this recipe to enjoy those fresh potato and carrot with some of those frozen bean. This is our first time joining in Robin's Thurday's Kitchen Cupboard.

Salmon and Green Bean Potato Patties

(adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly~The $ Smart Cook)

150 gram green beans
800 gram potatoes, chopped coarsely
20 gram butter
1/3 cup (25gram) finely grated parmesan cheese
1 egg
415 gram can red salmon
1/3 cup (35gram) packaged breadcrumbs
vegetable oil, for shallow-frying
3 medium size carrot (coarsely grated)


(1) Boil, steam or microwave beans until tender; drain. Rinse under cold water; drain. Chope coarsely.
(2) Boil, steam or microwave potato until tender; drain. Mash potato in large bowl with butter, cheese and egg until smooth.
(3) Drain salmon; discard skin and bones. Add salmon, carrot and beans to potato mixture; mix well. Shape salmon mixture into patties; coat in breadcrumbs. Place patties on tray, cover; refrigerate 30 minutes.
(4) heat oil in large frying pan; fry patties, in batches until browned lightly and heated through. Drain on absorbent paper.

A very very very simple lunch.

Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake

We harvested our first Lebanese zucchini for this summer. This is our first time growing 'Lebanese zucchini', so I was not sure what size is perfect to harvest this variety. Did not want it to get too mature or it will stop other fruits to develop. A few leeks and another one kohlrabi harvested this week. 

Our Lebanese brinjal plant that has now experience 3 summers did not disappoint us. We just enter summer and that old brinjal plant has given us roughly 10 eggplants for us. We had endless supply of yellow currant cherry tomatoes last week.

What did we do with the cherry tomatoes?

The second recipe that I enjoyed from this recipe book.

 Spicy Sardine and Spaghetti Bake (The Australian Women's Weekly~Gratins & Bake recipe book)

Ingredients:
250g spaghetti
1 cup (70g) stale breadcrumbs
1/3 finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (used curly ones)
1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil
318g canned sardines in oil, drained
250g cherry tomatoes, chopped coarsely (did not chopped)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

(1) Cook pasta in large saucepan of boiling water until tender; drain and reserved 1/3 cup (80ml) cooking liquid.
(2) Preheat oven to 220 degree Celsius.
(3) Combine breadcrumbs, parsley and 1 tablespoon of the oil in medium bowl.
(4) Heat remaining oil in same pan; cook sardines, tomato, garlic and chilli, stirring, until tomato begins to soften. Stir in pasta; season to taste.
(5) Spoon mixture into 1litre (8cup) ovenproof dish; pour reserved cooking liquid. Sprinkle with breadcrumb mixture. Bake, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until browned lightly.

Sardines and this yellow cherry tomatoes goes well together.

Rayyan enjoying the pasta.

One funny-looking purple savoy cabbage was harvested.

Two of our 3.5 months grown Royal Blue potato plant were all dried up due to the hot weather. It was a trial to plant potato on our most sunny patch at the end of winter. It grows really fast but the soil is too hot now. Touching the soil on that area is very hot during mid-day. I won't be able to walk on it barefoot. So I have to reluctantly dig the spud out early cause it was supposed to be medium-late variety. There still supposingly  in their baby stage. The trial is half-successful since there were at least 12 medium~large size spuds from each plants. Not bad considering it just been 3.5 months since I planted the seed potatoes. I probably grow this potato variety again because the yield is good even on shorter growing time.

Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.